WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 18: U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during an event recognizing the Wounded Warrior Project Soldier Ride in the East Room of the White House, April 18, 2019 in Washington, DC. Today the Department of Justice released special counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted report on Russian election interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The Associated Press fact-checked President Donald Trump and top administration officials following a flurry of misleading or downright false statements about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, and the results are exactly what you would expect.

Trump and his most prominent mouthpieces – Vice President Mike Pence, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, counselor Kellyanne Conway, and Attorney General William Barr – have grossly misled the public on what the special counsel determined.

On Saturday, Trump tweeted that the special counsel “should not have been authorized in the first place” and that the report “was written as nastily as possible by 13 (18) Angry Democrats who were true Trump Haters, including highly conflicted Bob Mueller himself, the end result is No Collusion, No Obstruction!”

The president’s other tweets on Saturday repeat the same theme – that the Russia probe was a “hoax” and a “witch hunt.”

Despite the fact that the Mueller Report should not have been authorized in the first place & was written as nastily as possible by 13 (18) Angry Democrats who were true Trump Haters, including highly conflicted Bob Mueller himself, the end result is No Collusion, No Obstruction!

“Mueller, a longtime Republican, was cleared by the Justice Department to lead the Russia investigation. The department said in May 2017 that its ethics experts ‘determined that Mr. Mueller’s participation in the matters assigned to him is appropriate.’ The issue had come up because of his former position at the WilmerHale law firm, which represented some key players in the probe.

Mueller was appointed as special counsel by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a Trump appointee.”

Along with the claim that the report shouldn’t have been authorized in the first place.

“He claimed as recently as last month that the probe was hatched by Democrats after losing the 2016 election. As evidence, Trump often points to a dossier of anti-Trump research financed by the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The research that was ultimately compiled into the dossier was initially financed by anti-Trump conservatives, and later by the Democrats.

But the Mueller report makes clear that the FBI’s investigation actually began months before it received the dossier.”

The end result of the greatest Witch Hunt in U.S. political history is No Collusion with Russia (and No Obstruction). Pretty Amazing!

Barr argued that Trump’s emotions in his attempts to obstruct justice did not amount to criminal intent. In other words, Trump was angry, but not corrupt.

“In assessing the President’s actions discussed in the report, it is important to bear in mind the context,” Barr said in his prepared remarks. “President Trump faced an unprecedented situation. As he entered into office…federal agents and prosecutors were scrutinizing his conduct before and after taking office, and the conduct of some of his associates. At the same time, there was relentless speculation in the news media about the President’s personal culpability.”

Pence also issued a dishonest statement on what Mueller found.

“Today’s release of the Special Counsel’s report confirms what the President and I have said since day one: there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and there was no obstruction of justice,” Pence said on Thursday.

So did Conway: “What matters is what the Department of Justice and special counsel concluded here, which is no collusion, no obstruction, and complete exoneration, as the president says.”

AP nipped these claims in the bud:

“The special counsel’s report specifically does not exonerate Trump, leaving open the question of whether the president obstructed justice.”

Mueller explicitly says this in the report: “Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” the report states.

They try so hard to remain neutral, but even PBS can't give benefit of the doubt any longer. https://t.co/UOPXMypsdK